This is Why They Number Channels Sequentially

fiction by Jason Edwards

Theseus had been walking for seemed like hours, and at first he was tense, walking slowly, shield up and sword at the ready. But after a while of nothing happening, of twisting corridors, left turns and right turns and seemingly endless miles of wall, he had become a little less vigilant. Now he walked with plodding steps, head almost hanging, sword dragging. His shield was gone—he’d set it down to take a leak, and then forgotten it. The truth was he was bored, just so damn bored. Actually, taking a whiz on a random wall had been the most exciting thing that had happened in the last 60 minutes.

The walls weren’t all exactly the same, but their difference was starting to blend together. Brick, stone, wood in places. Earthen walls and walls made of marble. Occasional graffiti, mostly in Greek, sometimes in Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Sanskrit, the familiar scrawls and dirty pictures. None of it interesting. One message in larger, more angry letters read “Go back to Athens!” and if Theseus was less bored he would have scratched in his own “Crete sucks” beneath it, but couldn’t really be bothered.

He’d had such high hopes, too. An adventure! Volunteer for sacrifice, enter the labyrinth, stalk the minotaur, kill it, free his people from ritual sacrifice, live forever in legend. Yawn. Such great plans, as they say, or will say, or whatever. Theseus was bored, had probably been bored when he’d decided to do this, and now he was reaping what he’d sown.

He could smell himself, the fear-sweat dried now and the sweat of tedium and worthlessness settled on him like a shroud of misery. Is that what he was, miserable? Yes. He almost wished the minotaur would come along now and just lop off his head. And of course it occurred to him that this was exactly what the labyrinth was supposed to do to a man, break his will. Well, Theseus wasn’t so sure his will was broken, exactly. He was just becoming fully aware of the tedium of everything.

You get up, take a leak, eat something, run around the city like an asshole, take a crap, screw somebody, go to sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat, except for the wash part unless you lived near a handy hotspring, which most folks didn’t, and the lucky one who did stank like rotten eggs anyway. Who fucking cares.

Theseus sat down, counting his breaths, looking at his sword. Fine craftsmanship, but then every man said that about his sword. To hate your own sword was to beg for another man’s sword, which was some kind of metaphor, probably. Or wasn’t. Sometimes a sword was just a sword. And swords are for killing people, of course. Either the minotaur, or Theseus himself. Is that what’s supposed to happen? Is he supposed to kill himself with his own sword? And the minotaur is a symbol of, what? The beast called depression? No, that’s stupid. Sometimes a minotaur is just a minotaur.

Across the corridor where he sat, Theseus saw something at the foot of the wall, something in the dirty shadows. Something orange? He scanned the base, and saw the cord stretching along in both directions, disappearing around a corner to his right, dwindling to invisibility to his left. Theseus got up to take a look, sword left behind him. On his hands and knees, he crawled to the opposite wall. Yes, some kind of cord, about as thick as a finger, and made of, what, some kind of rope, coated with a thick wax. He lifted it up—it was heavy, not so heavy he couldn’t lift it, but heavy from there being so much of it.

Theseus looked up and down the corridor. How had he not noticed this before. He took a deep breath. The air stank of muddy plains and old lightning. Maybe this was a guide of some kind. Yes, that must be it. That girl, what was her name, Adrian or something. Amy. Annie. She’d said she would leave him a sign of some sort. He hadn’t really paid attention to her. She had spots on her face.

Theseus went back for his sword, and half expected the cord to be gone when he turned around again, the hallucination of a mind fevered by boredom and fatigue. But no, it was still there. He tried to remember which way he’d been walking. Which way had he come from? He took a few steps to the right of where he’d been sitting. Then back and a few more. Neither way seemed better. He shrugged, decided to keep going left.

After a few hundred feet, there was a knot in the cord. Well, not a knot exactly, just a thicker spot, sculpted and square. Theseus knelt to look at it. The cord changed color here, from one shade of orange to almost, but not quite, the exact same shade And where the cord was flexible, this knot seemed very rigid. He plucked at it, then set it back down. He walked on.

After several hundred more feet, a four-way intersection. Theseus had been using the good-old fashioned right-hand rule, although he had been using his left hand, his shield hand. But here the cord went around the corner to his right. And there was another knot, and another change in color—still orange. Was this some kind of strange beast, sewn together, or perhaps a new kind of wool, spun from an odd kind of sheep? Theseus scratched his cheek. He needed a shave. His feet were sore from walking. His scalp itched. He was hungry, thirsty. His eyes felt full of sand, and burned when he closed them. He moved on.

More cord. Hundreds of feet of it, and dozens of those thick spots, the change in color. This was becoming as pointless as his earlier, aimless wandering. He decided to inspect one of the knots again. He picked up the cord, and crack appeared in the knot. Theseus pulled, and the knot came apart with a reluctant, smooth pop. On one side, three metallic prongs. On the other, three aptly shaped holes. In the distance, a loud, low scream of rage.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, a chill raced down his spine. Theseus looked in the direction of the scream, the direction he’d been walking. The scream continued, although it did not get any louder. Theseus stuck the knot back together again, and after a few seconds, the screaming stopped. Theseus dropped the knot, put his hand on his hip for his sword. It was gone.

He looked around him, but he couldn’t see it anywhere. He trotted back the way he’d come, but he didn’t find anything. Damn it. How long had he been walking? Hours? Days? Most of his waking life? Nevermind. He’d deal with… whatever on his own. He didn’t need a sword. He went to where he’d pulled the knot apart, and kept going, following the cord. Picked up the pace a little. Around a corner. Panic for a moment when he couldn’t see the cord anymore. But there it was, wedged tight against the wall and the floor, which was, here, some sort of bushy grass. No, not grass, some sort of rug. Tight little fibers, and the cord wedged underneath a wooden footing at the base of the wall.

He kept going. The wall was white, not glass smooth but smoother than stone. The ceiling was the same material. There were framed pictures here and there in the hallways. Landscapes, pictures of tall, monstrous structures. One of them so well rendered, he thought it was a real person, frozen inside a window. But it was just a painting. And in the ceiling, holes letting in sunlight. He must have walked all day and night, and now it was morning again outside, so bright he couldn’t see the sky past the glare.

He could here sounds now, coming from a door way at the end of this corridor. What sounded like music, and tinny, distant laughter. As he approached, he could make out dialogue, a man and woman. He couldn’t understands what they were saying, but every other line was punctuated by more laughter. Theseus nodded, understanding at last. The center of the labyrinth was probably an auditorium, where the people of Crete could watch the final battle between whoever found their way and the minotaur himself. Disgusting. Well, they’d see a different slaughter today. Theseus was angry.

He wished he had his sword. But he’d tear the Minotaur with his bare hands. Such idiocy, this whole labyrinth thing. The ritual sacrifice of Athenian youth, and for what? Revenge? Because some jealous assholes killed Androgeos, son of Minos? To avoid the subsequent plague? A plague on that plague. A plague on Minos. A plague on fools who ask gods to kill for them. Theseus would kill this Minotaur, end the sacrifices, and then he would… and then he would… and then he would think of something else to do.

Theseus reached the doorway, throwing caution to the wind, and stormed through. But this was no auditorium. This was a room like any other. Large, very large, ceilings high. The cord snaked across and ran up into a large box in the middle, which was throwing colored lights from the other side. Across from it a fat man sat in a large overstuffed chair. He was surrounded by piles of thin boxes, all of them filthy, greasy. A wave of smells hit Theseus, thick, sweet, savory rotten smells, making him hungry and nauseous all at the same time.

The man looked up as Theseus entered. “Come in!” he shouted, smiling. “You want some chicken wings?” he started to rise from his throne. He got to his feet, then winced, putting a hand to his back. He was wearing some kind of short tunic on his chest, white but filthy with food stains, shoulders exposed, large belly protruding from beneath. Short pants beneath that ending above his knees, some kind of flimsy material, also white with faded red heart shapes scattered around. The man sat back down again. “Ouch.” He said. “Go ahead and just help yourself.”

Theseus approached the flashing box and the man in chair. The box was emitting the sounds of speaking and laughter and music, still tinny and far away, as if it were a spy-window on some auditorium—perhaps below the room they steed in. “I’m looking for the minotaur,” he said, finally.

The man’s eyes were glued to the box. “Where’s your sword?” he said. His fat cheeks rested on his chest, half-reclined in his chair. His balding forehead shone with lazy sweat. He grabbed a cup sitting next to him quaffed its contents, and then crushed it with mighty strength and tossed it behind him.

“I don’t know. Do you know where the minotaur is? I was following that orange cord, and it led me here..”

“Oh! So you’re the little shit who unplugged my TV!” the man barked with laughter. “Thought I was going to have a heart attack, I was so mad!”

“That was you who roared?”

“Yeah. I’m the minotaur. You found me. Ready to fight? It’s to the death, you know.” The man chuckled.

“The minotaur is half man half beast, the foul offspring of the Creten Bull and the king’s wife Pasiphae.”

“Yeah, or, he’s the bastard child of a blacksmith and a whore who knows how to tell a good lie to her idiot husband.” The man laughed again, picked up a rod from within the cushions of his throne, and pointed it at the box. The colors shifted, and the dialogue abruptly changed. “Be for real, man.”

“If you’re the minotaur, than it was you who consumed the tribute every year, seven boy and girl virgins from Athens?” Theseus took a few steps closer, wanting to see what was inside that box.

The man shook his head. “Naw, not unless you mean seven pizzas and a few dozen orders of hot wings.” He laughed again. “Yeah, we got that ‘tribute’ every year. I think most of them just wandered around until they found the exit, then, like, got jobs or something. I don’t know.”

“But then what do I…” Theseus was at a loss. Confused, tired, and much to his shame and horror, finding the conversation altogether more boring than even the walking through the labyrinth had been.

The man shrugged. “I don’t know. You can hang out here, if you want.” He shifted on his chair, emitted a loud sound of flatulence, made a face. His eyes never left the box.

Theseus finally stepped close enough to look at it. It was indeed a window of some kind. Inside, tiny players spoke in a rapid-fire tongue, the stage behind them a mottled, chaotic scene. He couldn’t make any sense of it at all. “What is that?” he finally asked.

Something one of the players said made the man laugh. “It’s called Friends. I’ve seen, like, every episode, like twice. But it’s the only thing on until Seinfeld.” The man heaved a bowl onto his lap, overflowed with small white kernels, which he began to shovel into his mouth. “Of course,” he said, mouth spilling gruel “I’ve seen every episode of Seinfeld twice, too.” The man laughed again.

Although he couldn’t understand what they were saying, Theseus found himself transfixed. One of the players opened a door, and another behind it screamed. Theseus felt a smile cross his lips, the first one in ages. Or perhaps ever. “Why is that man wearing a goose in his head?”

“It’s not a goose, it’s a shower cap. And that’s not a man, it’s a–” the man started coughing. “It’s a woman, she’s the—“ he coughed again, louder.

Theseus turned to look. The man’s face was turning read as he coughed, louder, as bits of food flew from his mouth. His eyes were wide, and drool was spraying from his mouth. The man clutched at his chest, waving his other arm in the air. “Water!” he shouted, and continued to cough. He was shaking back and forth in his chair, tipping it side to side, taking in huge gulps of air in between coughing fits. His nose was running, his tongue protruding, his face shifting from red to purple. And all the while the noises and the laughter from the box continued.

The coughing came in smaller bursts and the man’s breathing become more rapid but shallow, increasingly shallow. His eyes started to close, and he stopped shaking the chair back and forth. He continued to clutch his chest, but then the hand finally flopped down at his side. He coughed once more, took a deep breath, and then stopped moving as the breath leaked out of for a long time. He was still.

“Minotaur?” Theseus said.

The Minotaur didn’t move.

Theseus turned to the TV. A man was pouring something from a bag into a bowl, and dog nosed its way into the bowling, eating. Theseus took a deep breath, and smelled something delicious, cheese and onion and garlic and tomatoes. In front of the dead minotaur, on a low table, a thin box with a large round bread, coated with flavors. Theseus started to drool.

Eventually, he got the dead minotaur out of the chair, and rolled the body off into the shadows. Theseus returned to the box, sat down in front of it, and watched as he began to eat. Soon he was laughing hysterically.